YEP Letters: January 23

Leeds City Council is thinking of making more cuts due to a reduction in funding.

At the same time it is spending over £4m on imposing 20 mile speed limits over large areas of the city which are not able to be policed.

It has also recently been installing lights on road signs which are already reflective (standing out when picked up by approaching cars headlights) so they now become part of the background and are not easily visible.

It has also spent large amounts installing speed humps everywhere which means drivers are not watching children, dogs, cats etc on the pavements while trying to avoid damaging their cars.

At the same time it is not fixing potholes.

It spends large amounts of money on agreeing planning consents for new estates etc, then when houses are sold just ignoring the legal planning consents.

The council does not clean drain gullies until they are so full of material that surface water cannot be cleared and flooding occurs.

The council is considering spending millions on a trolleybus system (remember the money wasted on the proposed tram system?) and a cycle way from Seacroft to Bradford.

It appears to me that the council has a system of budgets for each department which must be spent or the particular department is penalised, rather than being rewarded as it should be.

I think the council needs a system which looks at the whole budget and is able to transfer unspent monies from one department to another department which has overspent, as long as it doesn’t affect frontline services.

Care homes must be saved

Kevin O’Connor, Leeds

Further to the article on care homes (YEP, January 20), of course we should keep our last three care homes open.

Over the last couple of years we have closed care homes, old people’s rest homes, social outlets for the elderly and so on.

Don’t the people who make these decisions have parents?

Don’t they understand that these outlets are advantageous to all members of the city?

For example, if old people had somewhere to recuperate after hospital illness then we can release more hospital beds.

These people have worked hard all their lives and deserve some respect and thanks.

Let the city look after its previous assets instead of continually kicking them when they are most in need.

In other words, let the council grow a heart and conscience.

It’s time they realised life is about people, not money. Look after those who, in their heyday, looked after you.

Time to sort out pothole problem

D Daniel, Leeds

POTHOLES in the roads – a big problem and apparently one that’s expensive to repair.

Why not hire experienced supervisors, each in charge of a team of 10 personnel who are out of work and drawing benefit, to undertake said repairs? If they don’t turn up for work, then their benefit is stopped or at least reduced.

Why should these people be paid for doing nothing when there is so much to be done?

Blame coalition for NHS crisis

Barry Norman, Drighlington

For Bernard Duffy (Your Feedback, January 16) to try and blame Labour for the crisis in hospitals is ridiculous.

It is the Tory-led coalition that replaced NHS Direct with NHS 111 which has been identified by Emergency Medicine President Dr Clifford Mann as one of the reasons people are being directed to A&E. It is the Tory-led coalition that has seen the loss of thousands of district and community nurses. It is the Tory-led coalition that has forced drastic cuts in social care.

Then Mr Duffy wonders why there is a crisis in our hospitals.

If you ask the majority of people who work in the NHS or experience the NHS as a patient they will tell you that when Labour was in power they rescued it after years of neglect under a Tory government.

People should be very afraid as there will be no NHS in five years time if the Tories have their way.

Build homes in right places

Dave Paul, Morley

So after two years of fighting the ridiculous number of houses planned for certain areas of Leeds, someone has begun the realise the infrastructure is not there and has not been planned for.

The Morley Against Reckless Construction group in Morley has brought this to the plans panel on many occasions, only to be ignored.

Now it has come back to haunt the city.

It is the children of this city who will have to bear this burden over full classrooms travelling across the city to find places that will not be easy to find.

This council has ignored protests and peoples fears to plough this programme through with scant regard for the future.

This council is not fit for purpose; it has wasted millions on useless schemes.

We do need affordable housing in the right places with the infrastructure in place first.